Saturday, July 5, 2014

It's easy to dismiss location tracking - especially between partners - as a bad thing. The classic telenovela dialog of "don't you trust me?" and stuff like that sort of come to mind when people talk about their partners asking them to report on where they are and stuff like that.

I guess it makes a difference when you choose to do something like this as opposed to being asked to do so. And as soon as I had figured out the settings for the old Google Latitude service, I had configured my phone to ping my precise location to Tobie. He hardly ever checked it, quite frankly - this was just an additional layer of security on top of my regular SMS updates about when I was leaving the office or the plate number of my cab. But it was an oddly reassuring piece of technology that has always made me feel better.

Google Latitude was eventually retired but thankfully the location sharing facility was later integrated into Google+, much to my relief. So we're back to keeping our locations properly shared with one another at all times that our phones have viable data connections. At least in case of an emergency, I know that Tobie can quickly use the service to figure out where I was - at least based on the last reported location managed by my phone. After all, Tobie may drive by I still take public transportation at rather ungodly hours given my work obligations.

And for the rare times that we're apart, like with Tobie's company outing this weekend, at least I can still check on their progress from a location perspective to help reassure me that he's generally safe and I have a decent idea of where to start looking in case of trouble.

Creepy? Maybe if he didn't know about it. But a lot of our relationship has depended on trust and honesty. And this little piece of technology has just helped us find another way to exercise that principle.